The letters of Ingersoll are nearly as sublime as the oratory of Ingersoll; however, this collection did contain a number of letters that were just routine notes thanking people for something or inviting people over that had little to no soaring rhetoric. That's OK; even the most sublime speakers are allowed to be ordinary sometimes, and Ingersoll certainly delivers plenty of worthwhile prose in his letters. My one complaint is the non-letter biographical information. Some of it is helpful and useful for following the letters, but there really is too much and a great deal of redundancy. Some of the stories about Ingersoll were interesting and entertaining, but it is easy to get bogged down in the minutiae when you really want to read Ingersoll. I thought the least of the sections was the section on art and music; it was mostly short notes about invitations or places he'd been without as many of his outstanding insights on the world. There were a couple of that nature, but not enough in that section. Overall, a satisfying read, but you need to allow a bit of time - the book is over 700 pages. ( )